Season two opens where Slackers started: Jaime Solis and Jonathan Sasse, one on one. They catch up on a year where AI changed how almost everyone builds, and preview the Northwest Arkansas founder conversations coming to the feed. Then a walk through Crystal Bridges turns into the argument for the whole season. Art is something that might not work, put into the world anyway, and the professionals who learn to work like artists are the ones who will do work that matters in the age of AI.
Season two of Slackers opens with Jaime and Jonathan back in the chair together, catching up on what's changed since season one and laying out what's ahead: more conversations with builders and founders, including a run recorded live in Bentonville, Arkansas.
A day at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art sparked the conversation at the heart of this episode. Walking past paintings and sculpture, the two started riffing on a definition of art that sounds a lot like building a company: something that might not work, offered to other people anyway. From there they make the case that the future of meaningful work belongs to professionals who can blend the posture of an artist with the discipline of a trained operator.
In this episode
- Why Jonathan launched [Tandem Studio](https://tandemstudio.ai), and how Slackers and Red Threads are becoming part of its media arm
- What makes Northwest Arkansas such an unusual place to build
- The kindergarten test, and how adults train art out of themselves
- Artist as a noun versus artist as a verb
- How AI is putting longtime professionals back in the kindergartner's chair, and the real costs that come with it
- Getting stuck, and why getting unstuck no longer means raising five million dollars
- Why so many artists resist AI, plus a royalty-reconciliation use case for working musicians
- Creative destruction, the direct-to-VHS shelf at Blockbuster, and what the roots of hip-hop teach about building with the tools at hand
- Extraction versus durability as a business model
- Sufficiency, and the line just above "not sweating it" where life starts to feel good
Worth repeating
"Art is just something that might not work being put into the world." – Jaime
"Nobody's problem is I need something that is capable of taking my money." – Jonathan
"You get a billion dollars by stepping on a lot of throats, frankly." – Jonathan
Chapters
- 00:00 Cold open and welcome back to season two
- 02:37 A year of acceleration, and why Tandem exists
- 05:26 Building a media arm
- 06:11 Why Northwest Arkansas
- 07:44 Slackers on the road and a day at Crystal Bridges
- 09:07 Art is something that might not work
- 13:22 The kindergarten test
- 14:54 Artist as a noun, artist as a verb
- 16:27 AI and the return of the kindergartner
- 20:34 Putting on the artist's mindset
- 24:23 Getting stuck and getting unstuck
- 30:47 Taste, judgment, and the town photographer
- 32:38 Why artists push back on AI
- 37:19 Creative destruction and a royalty use case
- 39:55 What hip-hop teaches builders
- 42:27 Put it out and see who reacts
- 44:09 Extraction versus durability
- 49:32 Sufficiency
- 54:59 What's coming in season two
Mentioned in this episode
- Red Threads newsletter
- Slackers bonus episode with Jared Eichelberger of Five Tool Baseball
- Slackers season one episode on creative destruction
- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
- Tandem Studio
Follow Slackers wherever you listen so season two lands in your feed.
The artists at Crystal Bridges kept showing up to do the work long before anyone was watching. Red Threads is that practice for Jaime, every week since 2024.
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